God Does Not Only Work Through Rainbows

Although it may sound a little cheesy, the truth is that the most beautiful rainbows often find their full glow after the most tumultuous storms. Here is a less cheesy and more vulgar illustration, have you ever noticed that while feeling really horrible at your stomach, if you actually ‘get sick’ things seem to feel significantly better for a bit? I didn’t want to leave anyone out… whether a rainbow watcher or someone intimately familiar with nausea, you get the idea.

However, I’ve come to find that I miss out on so much of what God wants to teach me if I am consumed with the season of struggle coming to an end. God does not only want to work through our hindsight – although that is one aspect of the way He works.

Are you pursuing what God is doing in the middle of your storm?

God is actively at work everyday of our lives, whether we are leaning into it or not. Truly believing this reality will change the way that we think about our current season of life regardless of the climate.

This is a place in which I have found recent growth. I have found myself, in the past, thinking about how I would see God’s work through a current crisis only at the hindsight of its conclusion. In my head it may have sounded something like, “I wonder how God is going to use this when it is all over?”

This type of thinking is not all wrong. At the same time, it does miss out on so much of the growth that is possible in a given season of our life. This mindset creates a ‘hunkered down’ type of response to difficulty. We, in turn, think that we just need to weather the storm so that we can see how God desires to work through it after it is over.

What if instead of praying for immediate deliverance, we began pursuing what God is doing in our hearts right in the middle of the storm?

Even further, what if our prayer was that God would NOT deliver us from our current circumstances until we have fully come to embrace the change He desires to bring in our hearts and lives?

Our recent teaching series, Beauty, at Crossings Community Church has reminded me of the way that God has worked in and through every circumstance throughout history. The same is true in my own life.

I’m asking that God would give me a heart that desires transformation over deliverance. I know that God changes our hearts through prayer. Therefore, the way I am praying is changing.

What if you began to value God-wrought change in your life above and beyond the deliverance from difficult circumstances?

Comments

Dear friends of ours spent a month in the ICU with their son last December. Sean was in a horrific car accident on his way home from college. We all spent that time praying for healing and for God’s will to be done, and God answered by ultimately healing Sean in calling him home. However, for an entire month the Gauley’s ministered to others in the ICU, proclaimed God’s provision and goodness, and shared the gospel with 1300 people at Sean’s funeral. Jim said at some point: “If I just think of us, what good will come out of it? This was the tsunami that drowned us, but God was with us.” And there has been fruit nobody expected. It was humbling and God honoring to watch them. Not because they are that strong, because they are not. But God provided in the storm and they were willing to look further then just themselves.

On that note, Cowper said it best:

“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.”

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About Me

I am a Christ-follower, husband, father, friend, and pastor who loves watching baseball, playing volleyball with my daughters, training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with my son, and spending quantity time with my bride. Read More…